In general, a thin-plate holding container for accommodating thin-plates such as semiconductor wafers or the like for storage or transportation is publicly known.
Such thin-plate holding container mainly includes a container body, and a lid unit for covering the upper opening of the container body. The container body is provided with members for supporting the thin-plates such as semiconductor wafers or the like therein. Such thin-plate holding container requires to be kept clean inside thereof during transportation in order to prevent contamination or the like on the surface of the thin-plates such as semiconductor wafers or the like accommodated therein. Therefore, the container is sealed off. In other words, the lid unit is fixed to the container body for sealing the interior of the container off. There are various structures for fixing the lid unit to the container body.
The plates are stored in the container body and the lid unit is fixed to the container body for sealing the interior thereof off in a plant for manufacturing plates such as semiconductor-wafers. In this state, the containers are transported to a semiconductor manufacturing plant or the like. Generally, in the semiconductor manufacturing plant, the semiconductor wafers or the like are transferred to a specific container for production line, and placed on a production line.
When transferring the semiconductor wafers or the like into the line-specific container as described above, the above-described thin-plate holding container is used only for transportation, and thus is not necessary after transportation. Therefore, such thin-plate holding containers, after having been emptied, are returned to the originated plant or discarded. However, it is inefficient in terms of usage, and may result in waste of resources and increase of waste products.
Therefore, the present inventor has proposed an invention in which a lid unit receiving portion of the container body is improved so as to be capable of being fitted to various types of lid unit, whereby the container body can also be used in the production line before (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-289795). However, there remains a problem in that container bodies having structures different from such container body cannot be used in the production line.
In view of such circumstances, an object of the present invention is to provide a lid unit for a thin-plate holding container body which allows the container body to also be used, as is, in the production line after transportation and the like.